City Selections: Art from the Galleries
Samplings of Art From Galleries Around the City
Comes Downtown To the Chicago Tourism Center January 22 to March 6
Opening Reception, Friday, January 28, 6 – 8 PM

A sampling of art from galleries around the city can be seen in the downtown Chicago Tourism Center, located at 72 East Randolph Street, from January 22 to March 6, 2005. Curated by the Public Art Program of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, with work selected by the directors of five different neighborhood galleries, the Chicago Tourism Center will present City Selections: Art From the Galleries, an exciting survey that includes painting, sculpture, installation and video by emerging and established artists throughout the city.

Ranging from the north to the west to the south side of Chicago, five galleries are represented in City Selections: Art From the Galleries including Heaven (Wicker Park), MN Gallery (Bridgeport), Polvo (Pilsen), Suitable (Humboldt Park), and Western Exhibitions (West Town).

“This is a great way for artists to show their work to a broader audience,” said Nathan Mason, Curator of Special Projects for the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs’ Public Art Program. “Each gallery director has selected several artists whose work has been seen in a neighborhood gallery. We’re pleased to be able to present their work in a downtown setting.”

City Selections: Art From the Galleries offers a mix of innovative artists working in different media throughout the city, including Melina Ausikaitis, Doug Fogelson and Melissa Weimer from Heaven; Jack Carroll and Duk Ju Kim from MN Gallery; Miguel Cortez, Amanda Gutierrez, Anna Mayer, Harold Mendez, Hyunjoo Oh and Edra Soto from Polvo Gallery; Conrad Bakker, Derek Fansler, Ben Stone and Scott Wolniak from Suitable Gallery; and Nicholas Frank and Stan Shellabarger from Western Exhibitions.

A gallery talk and open discussion with gallery directors and artists talking about this niche of the art world is scheduled for Thursday, February 17 at 6 p.m. at the Chicago Tourism Center.

Viewing hours for City Selections: Art From the Galleries are Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Chicago Tourism Center is closed on holidays. Admission to the exhibition and gallery talk is free.

For more information on City Selections: Art From the Galleries, visit www.chicagoculturalcenter.org. or call 312.744.6630 (TTY: 312.744.2947).

City Selections: Art From the Galleries is sponsored by the Chicago Office of Tourism. Reservations for hotel accommodations at special rates and the Immersion Weekend hospitality packages, as well as more information about Chicago’s many exciting events are available at www.877CHICAGO.com or by calling toll free, 1.877.CHICAGO (1.877.244.2246). For those calling from outside the United States, Mexico and Canada, please call 1.312.201.8847. The TTY toll-free number for the hearing impaired is 1.866.710.0294. Visitor information is also available at one of the city’s official Visitor Information Centers. The centers are located at Chicago Water Works, 163 East Pearson Street at Michigan Avenue and the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 East Randolph Street. Chicago tourism information is also available on the Internet at www.cityofchicago.org/tourism. .

Chicago Tourism Center
72 E. Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60602

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artists participating with polvo:

Amanda Gutierrez
Anna Mayer
Edra Soto
Harold Mendez
Hyunjoo Oh
Miguel Cortez

Labor Language
Sound Installation
Amanda Gutiérrez
4´x 6´
2005

The aim of this project is to expose, through a system of signs, the idiomatic relationships of two cultures. Confrontation arises at the moment the cultures coexist in the same space, where all verbal interaction is predetermined by a particular social and economic system. In this context, the mutual dependence of one on the other is emphasized, generating a confused dialogue that creates a diversity of cultural interpretations.

Two objects of different weights will be situated in the space to have a direct physical relationship, each supporting the weight of the other through a simple pulley system. A 60 minute sound loop, consisting of edited foreign language instruction, will play from each object in turn, forming a constructed dialogue.

Amanda Gutiérrez
I was born in Mexico City in 1978 and studied philosophy for one year at UAM (Metropolitan University). In 1999, I decided to leave this and registered in the ENAT (National School of Dramatic Arts) to get a BA degree in Stage Design.
I put into practice the knowledge I had gained from installation and performance, which was mainly oriented toward scientific exploration.I made independent performance projects in which sound art is present as the fundamental element. In 2002 I participated in the Mexico-Japan Performance Festival with a piece called Pi. Radio was the pressure point between rhythm and execution in this performance. It was from this experience that I came to understand the melodic basis that radio samples processed with a variety of computer programs, may provide. By becoming acquainted with the use of video, audio and lightning software and hardware I was able to get in touch with the acoustic characteristics of space. This experience led me to do more complex installations which involved elements of programming to control audio, for instance, En Media, at the Fifth International Sound Art Festival (2002), and That is the Question at the Version03 Festival in Chicago, Illinois. I was granted two artistic residences thanks to experimentation with web radio. The first one was for the project Solaris at the CMM (Mexico City Multimedia Centre). There, I focused on the analysis of physical phenomena of the Sun and Jupiter. Secondly, I was invited to ZKM, Germany, to develop a project called Radial, an itinerant radio station that streams SW frequencies. In these projects I evidence an interest in issues related to the analysis and study of mass media, using technology as a tool for the exploration of different formal and conceptual solutions.

Rhythm Nation
DVD video performance on 3 monitors
Edra Soto
2004

Rhythm Nation is an act of perpetual kinetic motion that examines the inability to move forward in diverse sectors of our culture. The three major components of this act consist of three parts (3 movements): a rock drummer , a chain smoker , and a stationary bike exerciser. The rock drummer ,plays a forceful beat, that is reminiscent of a military march. Allegorically, capturing connotations of life in urbanity. The chain smoker depicts time filling habits that could lead us from pleasure to tragedy. The stationary bike exerciser figures into a certain compulsive-obsessive category, asking how fixated our society is with the idea of becoming perfect specimens willing to race like hamsters on a bicycle going nowhere, or possibly consider surgical procedures . This persistent immobile-motion is reflective of the non-progressive aspects of our culture.

Edra Soto was born in Puerto Rico in 1971. In 1995 she received the Alfonso Arana Fellowship to work in Paris, France for a year. In 1997 she moved to Chicago to attend the Art Institute of Chicago where she obtained her Masters degree in 2000. Her most recent presentations include a live performance at El Museo del Barrio (www.elmuseo.org) in New York, as part of the travelling show Don't Call it Performance, curated by Paco Barragan. She will be presenting a solo show in 2005 at UIC Gallery 400 and at Polvo. http://polvo.org/edrashow.htm

Put cho’ money where yo’ mouf is
Digital print, custom neon, custom gold, diamond studs, custom case
Dimensions variable
Harold Mendez
2004

By using the portrait as a stage for the body, Put cho’ money where yo’ mouf is adresses issues of commodified identities, appropriation and perpetuation of violence, machismo, and their role in the formation and domination of the male identity. This work plays with the idea of putting your money where your mouth is or challenging one to stand up for their word. This work takes the words literally. Just take a look at the diamond studs! This portrait points out a way in which an individual can alter their physical presence to temporarily and falsely upgrade their social status. As males we are always in the process of restructuring our identities, either as young men, fathers or boys trapped in men’s bodies. This work is inspired by early graffiti, hip-hop, and the disillusioned dreams of many young urban youth.

I’m feeling you……(A condition of the mind)
Video Installation
(Track 1, Jam On It by Newcleus, Track 2, Prototype by OutKast)
Dimensions variable
Harold Mendez
2004

I’m feeling you…is a short humorous video performance piece where I am engaging in the act of feeling or falling for the perfect woman, the prototype and fantasy girl. The video installation plays with the idea of illusions within a relationship between a man and a woman, specifically in the eyes of the man. Using a common global object, the piece embodies for many men the ideal female figure and fragile nature of a woman. The accompanying soundtracks express the intrigue in a new relationship and the fantasy of another. A common street dream among young males is to not only attain quick wealth but to also posses the ideal female trophy.

Harold Mendez is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work challenges the male role and its identity in contemporary society. His recent work explores street vernacular, the geography of violence, self-designed prisons, the use of language and illusions within the concept of the body as a contested and divided field. His work is informed by identity politics, globalization, technology, power structures and the nature of the human mind and condition. Based in Chicago, he works in sculptural installation, street intervention, public art and conceptual work. As a former graffiti artist, he combined traditional and alternative approaches to his work while critiquing the landscape as a stage of dissonance. With an interest still rooted in graffiti and hip-hop culture his work bridges a gap between low and high art. He is currently seeking avenues for experimental collaboration with established and emerging artists in their development as cultural leaders. Harold has currently exhibited with functionvariable, an arts collective in Barcelona, Spain in collaboration with Polvo. He has previewed and lectured on his short film I’m feeling you at El Centro, Northeastern Illinois University. Scheduled for a solo exhibition at Polvo in July of 2005, Harold will present a new series of works focused on the geography of violence. Recently, he participated in Tart, a group exhibition spotlighting the use of irony by new media artists at Klein Art Works. In 2003, he exhibited in the There Goes My Hero group exhibition at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom. While exhibiting in the UK, he also delivered a lecture, entitled Experimental Performances: Exhibiting the Other, at the University of Northumbria. His curatorial experience includes The Brown Sheep Project: Mexotica, A Living Museum of Intercultural Fetishes, with Guillermo Gómez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra in 2002. He is currently a Trainer with The Posse Foundation, a youth advocacy group that identifies, recruits and trains student leaders from public high schools to form multicultural teams entering into higher education.

Holo Buddha 1
Denysiuk Reflection Hologram (Motion Side Up)
4" x 6" Slavich PFG-01 plates developed with CWC2 and Pyrochrome Bleach.
HyunJoo Oh
2003



Holo Buddha 2
Denysiuk Reflection Hologram, Double Exposure
4" x 6" Slavich PFG-01 plates developed with CWC2 and Pyrochrome Bleach.
Experimented with a double exposure reflection.
HyunJoo Oh
2003


Once Chuang Tzu dreamed he was a butterfly, a fluttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Tzu. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Tzu. He did not know whether Tzu had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Tzu. Between Tzu and the butterfly there must be some distinction. This is what is meant by the transformation of things.
-Chuang Tzu (286 BCE) Translated by Patricia Ebrey

My holographic work presents a visual language, which can only be completed and made meaningful by the viewer. My holograms do not stay quietly on the surface. When a viewer stands in front of my work, the image of the Buddha transforms, moves in three-dimensional space, appears and disappears, changing in color and meaning.

In the "Holo Buddha" series, a statue of the Buddha is placed on top or behind each hologram. The Buddha silently observes himself within the hologram in an infinite temporal loop, as the hologram links the contemplative figure with the process of its production and reception. The viewer, suddenly seeing their reflection in the mirror, realizes that their own image has been projected onto the mirror in front of them with the “Holo Buddha”.

HyunJoo Oh's works involve improvisational network sound, cartographic sciences, self-organized and distributed social softwares, Virtual Reality and holography. She investigates the artistic gesture of impacting human coexistence, bridging the analog/digital and online/offline divide with an emphasis on accessibility of technological-social infrastructure. Oh is currently working on several virtual reality projects, such as 'Inside/Outside System II' and 'Nodule Resonance' and has been a teaching assistance of the Immersive Environment course(VR) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Oh joined several art groups, such as the post-production team of the Chicago Millennium Park Fountain Project (a permanent public art installation), Applied Interactives and Dottedquad and her works have been shown in Versionfest>04 (Chicago, IL), IMMEDIA (Ann Arbor, MI), OpenEnd Art, Polvo, Buddy and 1926 gallery.(Chicago, IL) She holds a B.F.A (2002) in Philosophy and Art Education from the SungKyunKwan University in Seoul, Korea and M.F.A (2005) in Art and Technology studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. her website.

Building a better mousetrap 1-6 (series one)
digital prints on canvas mounted on foamboard
9.25" wide x 10.25" height each
Miguel Cortez
2005